Lagos, local govts empower 3000 residents

Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola and council chairmen have empowered thousands of Lagosians in a bid to tackle unemployment.

Last Saturday, the council chiefs held a grassroots empowerment programme at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, where over 3000 residents went home with equipment to support their ventures.

Fashola, represented by the Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa, lamented the country’s failure to achieve socio-economic and political growth after over 15 years of democratic governance.

He explained that the vision of state and local government areas is to work together to make the state the pride of the country.

”We do not do poverty alleviation but grassroots empowerment. The council chairmen have done well in providing infrastructure for the citizens. They have built roads, schools, hospitals, constructed drainages and empowered the people among other things. I must thank the council chairman for taking care of the grassroots. The councils’ bosses have come together to do the biggest empowerment programme in the country,” he said.

Fashola expressed the need for the residents to be vigilant in the face of security challenges rocking the country, urging them to continue to be security-conscious to keep the state safe.

“I want to tell the residents of Lagos that the security of this great state is also their responsibility. We should not leave it for the government alone. We need to support the council chairmen in their programmes so that they can provide the dividends of democracy. We need to be steadfast and do not accept expired rice from some people who claim to love you. These are tactics from the opposition. And I do not want them to scare you with their strategies,” the governor added.

He explained that Lagos is the only state in the country that did not ban the activities of commercial motorcycle operators, saying it was outright ban in other states controlled by the opposition parties.

The Chairman of Conference 57, a body of the councils’ bosses, Hon Akeem Sulaiman, explained that the gesture to empower over 3000 grassroots people became necessary because, “poverty seems to have become a natural phenomenon in Nigeria. Successive administrations in Nigeria have made efforts towards poverty alleviation in Nigeria.”

“It is obvious that most poor people in this country cannot provide for themselves the basic needs of life. The persistence of poverty in the world and indeed in Nigeria has made it imperative for us to embark on some developmental programmes to ensure improved standards of living for the poor masses.

“As part of measures to empower our people, we will give out fridges, deep freezers, boat engines, generating sets, food stuffs like rice and garri; pop corn machines, mobile phones, spray painters, machine boxes, soft drinks, sewing machine and hair-dressing machines, among others. I urge you to make good use of the goods. Please do not sell them,” he said.